free speech

The Internet Censorship Debate

As with most things are life, there are always positive and negatives. This is especially the case with the net, the internet censorship debate has many different views.

It is inarguable that the internet has changed the world. It has made the way we research easier; we have the wonders of the world at our finger tips; delight and desires realised at the touch of a button and it has revolutionised the way we shop and keep in touch with one another. This is especially helpful for those in remote places who long to keep connected to the rest of the world.

But there are negatives to the World Wide Web. It is now easier to access inappropriate material and the internet is a scouring ground for criminals to prey on the young and vulnerable.

As the internet has become more mainstream and embraced by society, the powers that be have censored the internet. All countries have some form of censorship imposed upon them; some may be rather lax whilst others take firm control over what can be viewed over the World Wide Web. internet sensorship debate or privacy

No one is disputing that the internet can be a dangerous place full of uncertainties. But the level of censorship that government applies can be questioned.

Within certain countries the internet is totally restricted, the government decides what can and can not be viewed. Impossible, I hear you cry! But it is true. In these countries the government control all computers that have internet connection capability. Now, this obviously is the extreme of internet censorship.

But the government will obviously always argue that censorship is for the good and the welfare of the public. Protecting the young and the vulnerable is the reason for censorship. Yet, when there are no clear definitions of what is offensive or harmful, and then the debate flares.

The reason that there is such a debate over internet safety is down to the impact that this censorship has over the basic human right of Free Speech.

Some argue that censorship of the internet limits free speech and this goes against basic human rights. This is true, however there are laws relating to Free Speech that concern speech when it id classed as harmful, offensive or insights hate.

The problem arises, however, when considering what is classed as offensive. Everyone has a different view point built up by their own beliefs and experiences. If the internet was censored due to what every person found offensive, I doubt that there would be anything left.

This is where the internet censorship debate begins to get stuck. Depending on the individual’s viewpoint depends on whether internet censorship is a positive or negative regime.

Why Would Anyone need Anonymity Online ?

It’s definitely one of the first concerns people express to me regarding anonymous web surfing – “what exactly are you trying to keep quiet ?
Although I always find it’s easily countered with –
Well why do you want to know what I’m doing ?
Then the coughing and spluttering will start followed by excuses about how there are many criminal activities online.  So if I am able to keep my anonymity online, well so can all the terorists, hate groups and online criminals – so anonymity protects these people.
I think this is a very weak argument, it begins on the premise that you have no idea where to look.  What are you likely to find when snooping on someone online – mostly nothing, occasionally something you may not approve of but something more dangerous, extremely unlikely using such a broad surveillance tactic.
One of the problems with surveillance is that there are so many personal and hidden agendas.  Just look at places like China, where people want to tell you how to act, how to think.
If I’m surfing anonymously, I’m not doing anything bad, but there are plenty of people who might think normal things are terrible.  I don’t follow a religion, so my watching atheist lectures online or reading articles debunking creationism could be offensive to many devout people.   If I’m in the wrong country such behaviour could even threaten my liberty!

We really have to have Anonymity Online

The reason we need to protect our right to anonymity online is not always to protect against the legitimate authorities but also the snoop who will be also spying on you.
The principle is that everyone should be entitled to some privacy.  I close the door when I got to the bathroom not to hide what I’d doing, but merely I don’t want to be watched !   If you ask I’ll tell you why I went to the bathroom, but I’m worried about why you need to know!
anonymity online
It’s just the same with the internet, sometimes you are happy to be open, but sometimes you want privacy.   I might not mind my friends at the rugby club knowing I watch online porn, but might be slightly more reluctant to admit to membership of a knitting forum.
In many countries it’s even more important to keep some online privacy,  Turkey is a pretty free country  overall, yet it actively bans gay websites.  Is visiting a gay website a criminal thing to do, incredibly in many countries it could end up costing you dear, sometimes anonymity online is a desire, sometimes it’s essential.

Catch the Criminals – Not the Innocent

One of the problems I have with all the monitoring, filtering and surveillance that goes on online it that it rarely works. For a start surveillance, 99.999% of the time all you are doing is monitoring the innocent. Anyone who has anything to hide can easily takes steps to bypass the monitoring. So in the end all the online big brother stuff does is invade our privacy – it rarely picks up anything from the guilty as they cover their tracks.

It’s the same with blocking and filtering access to sites that we decide are no appropriate. You may argue that it’s right to filter websites with dangerous and criminal content – I would argue back it’s also normally just a huge waste of time. Any site that contains for instance illegal pornography can be copied and rehosted on a thousand other sites with ease. They can be encrypted, sent on usb keys or DVDs or hosted on darknet sites. In effect it’s a great big fat waste of time, the URL filtering slows down our surfing and the only thing you achieve is this

A completely false feeling that you’ve dealt with the problem, when of course you haven’t.
You’ve Blocked access to websites to people who weren’t going to use them anyway
Driven the criminals responsible for this further underground.

Let’s get this straight blocking the website of a paedophile ring does little to help the victim, other than pretending they don’t exist. What we need to do is cooperate and catch the criminals involved.

This is a perfect example of what should be happening – http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/140_10/
, a racist uploading videos onto Youtube, don’t put resources into monitoring access, or filtering the web site out. Simply catch the people responsible and bring them to justice.

Dangers of Social Networking

Many authors have highlighted the risks of misinformation that is possible through social networking sites, however here it’s powerfully illustrated in Egypt.  It’s completely believable and very well presented.    Have a look to see what you think – the flip side of the sites credited with the Arab Spring.

I think we can all believe that this could happen, one of the main worries is that these sites could also be used by the ‘bad guys’. It would be extremely naive to think that leaders in Syria and Iran for example haven’t got teams working with Facebook and Twitter accounts either spying or spreading another version of reality.

Kind of confusing about what to believe…………….